Dick Brewer for Inter-Island Surf Shop

Greetings, Shredderz! Our last post went into great detail about a Hawaiian surf shop that was once home to a stable of well-known shapers. Today’s post is similar, but today we’ll be examining a board by Dick Brewer Inter-Island Surf Shop.

The board pictured above is for sale on eBay. You can find a link to the board here. As of the time of writing this post, bidding is $500, with about a day left in the auction. As you can see in the last picture, it was shaped by Dick Brewer, though it’s interesting to note the board doesn’t seem to bear a Brewer signature. It’s 7’4″, and according to the posting, the board dates back to 1969.

Dick Brewer (note: the Encyclopedia of Surfing is now available only to subscribers) is unquestionably one of the most influential shapers in history. He is well-known for shaping guns for waves of consequence, and his designs are coveted by collectors.

Inter-Island Surf Shop has a similarly robust history. Sparky Scheufele, Mike Diffenderfer, Jim Phillips, Barry Kanaiaupuni, and countless other Hawaiian luminaries have been associated with the shop at some point in time.

Most of Brewer’s boards were shaped under his own name, bearing his classic plumeria wreath logo.

There are many small variants on Dick Brewer’s logos, but this is a pretty classic example

What makes the board posted above interesting is the fact that it was made for Inter-Island, and not under Brewer’s own name. Judging from a recent upload on Inter-Island’s Instagram, though, Brewer and the shop remain on great terms:

Another interesting aspect of Brewer’s collaborations with Inter-Island is the fact that Brewer made boards for Reno Abellira. One of their joint models was called “The Disc”.

There was a Brewer / Inter-Island surfboard that sold at a recent US Vintage Surf Auction that was touted as a Disc model. You can find a link to that board here. I have included some of the pictures from the USVSA listing below.

However, I believe the USVSA board has been incorrectly identified as a Disc model. There’s no doubt it’s a Brewer for Reno, as proven by the inscription on the deck, which Brewer signed and addressed to Reno.

Note the differences between the USVSA board and the Disc ad. The most prominent part of the Disc board is the “ski-tip” nose (also called the “flip tip”), which is also pretty rounded off. The USVSA board has a much pointier nose. See below in the closeup of the original ad:

The eBay board at the top of the post is unlikely to be a Disc, either. It doesn’t seem to have the same pronounced ski tip nose. The eBay board and the USVSA board have different silhouettes from one another, as well. The USVSA board seems to have a much narrower, pulled-in tail, that almost qualifies as a pintail.

Here’s a picture of Dick Brewer and Reno, posing with un-labeled boards whose silhouettes look similar to the non-Disc boards mentioned in this post.

Brewer on the left and Reno on the right. The deck pinlines look similar to the ones on the eBay Inter-Island board at the top of this page. Photo by David Darling; via Reno Abellira’s personal site.

As a bonus, here’s a shot from Buggs, the proprietor of the excellent Surfboardline.com, showing another Reno / Brewer board. This one bears a super cool dual signature, and has a Lightning Bolt thrown in there to boot.

Regardless of whether or not it’s a Disc, the eBay board listed at the top of the page is a cool example of a lesser-known Dick Brewer shape. The board isn’t in perfect condition — you can see on the rails where some significant repairs were made — but it’s still a cool example of a collaboration between two Hawaiian fixtures. Check out the listing here.